


To The Heart Unhurt

by Claire



Category: Jamie and the Magic Torch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-06
Updated: 2008-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claire/pseuds/Claire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie grows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Heart Unhurt

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Emerson quote, "All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt."

_Your mum's worried about you, Jamie. She's asked me to talk to you._

Like he doesn't do enough talking already. Like the teachers haven't already cornered him and asked him six million questions about how he is and what life's like at home. And he knows they've called Mum into school because she palmed him off onto Aunt Sharon last week, who stank of smoke and bitched about missing the bingo.

But it's not like she's got a reason to be worried. It's not like he's hanging around street corners like Jason, not like he's nicking money out of her purse to buy fags like Simon.

_She told me about your torch; about how you shouted at her when she wanted to throw it out._

Because it's not the torch's fault they had to chuck so much away, not the torch's fault the flat was so small. And Mum only made him get rid of so much because it stopped her from looking in the hall where Dad's suitcases were already packed and going to a different address.

She hadn't let him take Wordsworth with them, and the little battered wooden cross that had stood in the back garden stays in his bottom drawer, soil-stained and wrapped in an old t-shirt he'd found in his wardrobe.

_I understand that it's difficult, that it's hard to let go of things from happier times, but we all have to grow up, Jamie._

Grow up and lose everything. Because it's his fault the torch stopped working, his fault he looked at the hollow tube and _wondered_. He thinks Mr Boo would be horrified if he knew. But maybe he already does and that's the reason Jamie's not allowed there any more.

He knew he shouldn't, had that little voice in his head telling him it was wrong, but he didn't listen and now it's just a tube with a light bulb stuck on the end. Now it's just like a normal torch, but the torch _isn't_ normal, has never been normal, so the pack of batteries he nicked from the Co-op lies unopened on the floor.

And he still tries. He tries every night, even if it sees him wrapped in bed and wanting to cry.

_Tell me about Cuckoo Land, Jamie._

So he does. He tells them everything, and dreams of flying away in a submachine.


End file.
